What happened?
Tobin McKearin, chief operating officer for Polco, presented council members a look at results from the survey during the meeting. The survey was conducted by the National Research Center at Polco from January to March, according to the presentation.
The survey results included 268 responses from a probability-based sample of 5,000 randomly selected households in McKinney. McKearin said answers were weighted based on the city’s demographics. The results were presented with a 95% confidence interval and a 6% margin for error.
An open-participation survey was also made available online to any McKinney resident. The survey received 443 responses but they were not included in the results presented because the respondents were not randomly selected and can represent a biased group, McKearin said.
A full report of the results can be accessed on the city’s website.
The results
Respondents were asked to rate the quality of ten different facets in the McKinney community. Safety was rated the highest at 87% and mobility was rated the lowest at 34%. The results for each facet are similar to the survey’s national benchmark, according to McKearin’s presentation.
That benchmark is set by surveys conducted in more than 500 communities across the U.S. representing opinions of more than 50 million residents.
In addition to rating those facets, residents were asked to rate specific categories related to McKinney’s government, safety, economy, mobility and natural environment. The survey included 123 different categories. McKinney residents rated 13 categories higher than the national benchmark, 107 categories similar to the national benchmark and three categories lower than the benchmark.
McKearin said it was really good that the city only had three prompts that rated lower than the national benchmark.
“Most communities see a lot worse than this and you have 13 that received higher ratings,” he said.
McKinney ranked below the national benchmark in the following categories:
- Water resources
- Ease of travel by public transportation
- Bus or transit services
- Crime prevention
- Vibrancy of the downtown and commercial area
- Economic development
“It’s not a reason we shouldn’t be concerned, because we should, but we are seeing this trend nationally,” he said. “We are seeing, relative to how we were doing in the past, most residents are rating their local governments and their national governments lower.”
Respondents rated 93 categories similar to McKinney’s 2023 results. Two categories received higher ratings than in 2023.
